Wait....what????

Hmm I'll have to look in to it. I've found a great barn of eventers who I am learning a lot from without the pressure of competing and the team like you mentioned so I'm happy. I was just shocked when I went to the first few meetings/practices.

I know a girl who goes to Perdue! We billeted with her family when we went over. She rides Mounted Games, don't know if she would be on the eq. team.

Why are you so surprised that you see so many inappropriate scenarios going on around you in this horsey world? There is just so much to learn about handling and riding a horse.

Believe me, being with horses is the learning exercise of a lifetime and you will never stop picking up ideas or tips. You will be wrong sometimes, you will be correct on other occasions.

The difficult is always to put your point across in such a way as to acheive a positive result. Dealing with the horse sometimes is easy - dealing with the human owner can be a serious problem. Sometimes just raising an issue can cause a relationship issue with the owner or rider.
But if the horse is suffering, then weigh up the odds, think about how to make your point and start talking.

Remember you are going to need more tact with the owner, than you might need with an unbacked, in season, stroppy, Thorobred mare

Some folks do try to learn and they keep their eyes open,
Some folks don't seem to realize that what they are doing is either bad for the horse, dangerous for them or dangerous to other folks around them.
Some folks simply don't care.

But if you want to be in this horsey world, then you are part of it. And we must all try to help eachother. Sometimes the problem revolves around ignorance - no more no less.

Never ever stop asking questions
Never ever stop querying your own attitudes
Never ever worry about asking for advice
Never ever be afraid to admit you are wrong.
Never ever stop putting yourself forwards - but just be careful how you do it.
and
never ever watch cruelty to a big, dumb, quadruped that can't speak up for itself.

Barry G

And accept the fact that when you get old and grey like me, you are going to prefer the company of horses (and dogs) to that of most humans (except for other horsey folks of course)

I went to uni on the East Coast at a place with very highly regarded equestrian team, both eq and dressage, which won nationals for several years in a row. You had to be a good rider to get on the team. There were intense, scary try-outs and of course the team was determined year after year to retain its status so the pressure on the riders to compete well was relentless. Due to its reputation the uni attracted good riders, so it was a self-perpetuating thing. This all seemed to be like the least amount of fun anyone could have on a horse so I never even tried out. That and I knew I'd never get on since I'd have to try out for the First Level division as I had shown (and made an arse of but nevermind) Second Level and there were FEI or close to it level people who were making the team at that level.

Anyway, the quality of the riders at that place was overall pretty good. That was just the kind of place it was. I'd consider myself kind of an okay rider but was very much towards the bottom, mediocre end of things there, since a lot of people weren't mediocre, but excellent. It was high pressured enough that even though I wasn't competing much, I got a neurotic complex about how much my riding sucked. It in fact turned me off competing. Before I started uni I showed dressage regularly but lost the will to do it there due to the crazy intensity, and if your 53% was on the board below everyone else's 70%, you felt pretty sh*te about it.

During my first year I let them use my horse in one of the IHSA dressage shows. Cause she is a good girl, the other teams put their dodgiest riders on her. Obviously I had zero control over who was on her at that point and could only bite my nails and watch (and to be fair, it wasn't horrendous, it was just out of balanced riders lugging around the arena) but it was the last year she ever did an IHSA show.

I use leg and seat cues as much as possible, but even so, when I ask a horse to stop I gently bump back on the reins once while I use my seat. They seem to do better with just a little pressure. That may just be my horses. lol I don't like getting in a horses mouth a lot. I feel like I'll hurt them. :(

I hope whatever school I end up going to is not like that. I'm looking at Delaware Valley and Virginia Intermont and poeple have said good things about their teams so hopefully I will be ok.

I'm so happy the barn I rode at was owned by a very good trainer. I took a half hour dressage lesson from her every week in addition to my regular group lesson. It was very rare that I had a lesson with her where I was allowed to have my stirrups and reins. It was always one or the other. It used to drive me crazy at the time but now I know it made me a much better rider and I am really thankful for that.

Hmm... all of these stories don't sound too good... it makes me very thankful that I ride with two great instructors! One of them has me riding on a lunge line for the first half of the lesson. Whenever I start to use my hands more than my seat, she makes me ride on the buckle walk, trot, and canter, using only my seat and body to slow down the horse. It helps SO much, and it makes me disappointed that so many coaches are teaching the 'reins to stop' way. However, I can understand that some riders are still getting the hang of it, and- especially in shows- they might forget about using their seat.

I've had friends who have done the program and one in particular is an intermidiate/advanced rider who had no problem with the program, but she had already had experience getting catch rides and took the opportunity to get on anything. Anyways your lucky the girl on the pony even had a coach, most of them are using the strongest member of the team as a coach and that could be dangerous depending on who it is. There were a couple of A circuit riders who didn't need any help and some very novice riders who showed where the divide was, but no one I saw was jumping very big, probably not even 3 foot. One of the girls on the team was going to state and it was obvious she had won an eq medal or two in her days so no surprise. People who take competitive riding seriously aren't used to seeing people just participating for experience around them. It makes having three or four horse show experiences affordable to an average college student interested in riding horses, give these guys a break, most are doing cross rails or hunter hack. Besides for those of you who donate your horses for a day think of how it makes your horse appreiciate you riding them. I would just use it as a threat from time to time, "don't make me send you back to those college students again!"

ok so i didn't read everything that everyone wrote b/c i wanted to respond BUT i rode in college and our team was very competitive. We had extensive tryouts and the cut a lot of people.

I have been riding and showing for years and i was shocked when we completed against other schools how people made the DUMBEST mistakes.

For example:

In the flat classes we did like a dressage type thing, were at the indicated letter you did whatever they had specified (sitting trot, canter, halt ext) ... well there were people who would flop all over in the sitting trot or would be on the wrong diagonal the whole pattern or instead of preparing to stop at letter A the wouldn't stop for another 1/4 of the arena! I was on a 4 yr old in one class and there were people on MUCH nicer and better trained horses and i got second- my jaw dropped b/c I knew I did the patters right and perfect but I was on a young not to perfect horse so I didn't think we would do well ...

Then in jumping they would just assume the horses would jump, HELLO you have to ride the horse.

So needless to say it was a lot of eye opening for me. Our team was polished to the nine but other teams were kind of a joke- and we were Division 1 so they should have been good.

BUT don't get your hopes down that riding in college isn't a good idea- you can find good teams out there and you can learn a lot. For the 1st 2 months our trainers made us ride without sturrups or reins on a lounge line so that we would have a super solid core.

I can tell you that it def. made me a better rider and used to getting on random horses here and there and having to adjust.

I have originally been taught to be very "handsy." Roger and I were having a big problem on Wednesday because, I would try to give him a lot of rein but, when he took off I would say "he obviously can't do this on a long rein" and shorten them, therefore... he would go faster. :P i FINALLY got myself to sit down and slow him down. >.<